this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
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Having a burden to pay your staff is just that - a burden.
It doesnt mean that owners wont make more money, its just a bigger pain in the ass than its worth.
You mean like every other company on the face of the planet? Seems to work out just fine.
That's a false comparison, and you know it.
Not the person you replied to, but I do think it's a fair comparison, most are operated by a buy product sell product to customer system. Take retail for example there is nothing in a restaurant environment that retail isn't having to do at store level, because it's still buying products with the intent to supply it to the customer base. You still have to deal with the same mechanics still have to deal with waste you still have to deal with pricing for the consumer you still have to deal with your wages, so my question is how is the restaurant industry not the same.
This of course is also not including the majority of the other countries that do not use our system and seem to be handling it just fine.
As a consumer I would much rather have to deal with a higher menu price with the sign that saying tips not required then have to deal with trying to figure out how much the transaction is going to cost plus whatever the tip is going to be which seems to be getting higher and higher. Plus it also helps the employee out because if they're in a lower end restaurant that isn't getting many customers or they get assigned a crappier area, they don't have to keep track themselves to make sure they're reporting to their employer "hey I didn't actually make minimum wage this week so you're going to have to pay the difference" it also removes a lot of volitily in terms of how much you're actually going to get paid
Don't know what else to say but boohoo
Continue advocating for the owner class then i guess.
Staff make more money on a tipped system than not.
And do you think that extra money comes from the owners?
I don't think he reached that stage of development tbh.
The extra money comes from the customer no matter the system.
But now wages will stay down while ownership makes more.
Correct but with a tipping, the onus is on the consumer and the most affected would be the worker should the customer not have enough "compassion"... The owner has little to no risk and often even steals from employees
With a livable wage and no tipping system, the owner is mandated to pay a proper wage. They may choose to raise prices but then the onus is on them and also the risk. If they raise prices too much, they'll lose clients
Guess you'll just have to live with paying fair wages to your employees. Get fucked.
Lol, im not an owner dingus.
Ive worked basically every position from busser and expo all the way to exec chef and gm and am currently a bartender. I can sayy with first hand knowledge that wages go down when switched from a tipped system to a non tipped system.
I guess first hand knowledge of the industry counts for nothing when a bunch of tech bros on lemmy know more than me.
Edit: makes me sad that people who want worker reform would want to support owner suppression of wages.
I know it doesnt fit your neat little box, but it is facts.
So go ahead and explain exactly where thr money is lost. Does the restaurant make less money now? Is an owner incapable of paying their employees the equivalent of what they made with tips?
You said you know all of this so intimately, so lay it out for us idiots.
Ok, I'll lay out for all of you idiots.
In our current system, customers almost directly pay wages for servers and chefs, and it stays tied to menu prices. Thus, wages go up when prices go up.
In this suggested system, you trust the ownership class to raise wages for some reason because that works fantastically in the United States.
Im not sure why you're suggesting that because the capitalist class will always, always, always bleed whatever they can dry. You know that, i know that the railworkers in the us know that.
Like come on, use your tiny tiny brain that apparently can't multiple 50 times .2 and think about this for a second. This will and has absolutely led to wage suppression because they will absolutely not raise wages once they are set.
It's crazy to me that so many people on a sub called "work reform" are advocating for the ownership class and lowering wages. Like, why do you think we're all here????
Fuck.
The ideal situation would be unions, but no one here has suggested that for some reason, maybe its because no one in this conversation, with the exception of myself, has ever stepped foot onto a restaurant floor with intent to work outside of the one time they washed dishes at an applebees when they were 16.
I feel like im taking fuckin crazy pills with the amount of capitialist bullshit im reading here.
Whats wrong with all of you????
We aren't advocating for the owner class. We are not responsible for how ownership responds to our actions.
Just because an action might have negative effects for the works aside from the positives does not mean its a bad idea.
The whole point of this is to pressure the owner class to pay a fair wage to their employees. Of course the owner class will attempt to defend their position, which likely means putting their workers into undo hardship.
People are tired of playing games. Pay what someone is worth, and dont make them jump through hoops to get it.
People can't afford food anymore let alone the 18-25% tips on everything. It was easier before the recent insane rise of inflation, but the increase of food prices has applied to restaurants, too now since they need to buy the more expensive food plus make a profit. Or maybe they're just being greedy, too, idk. But point is, every place has seemed way too expensive to eat out at lately. That's before the tips. Then, adding on tips and having to do math at your meal every time when you're already stretching your budget every time you go out, plus suggested tips going up (from 15 to 18, to 20, to 22 and even higher now), and other countries not dealing with this, and I think it's making people even more tired of the tips bullshit.
People in the US are trained to think themselves as consumers before workers, which is a big problem, but in this case I think the aggravation is understandable. And it's weird they work different than basically every other industry. If wage suppression is a problem after, then they're just in the same boat as the rest of us, and we can all work on it together. Probably with unions.
People don't want to do math when they are going to get a food or beer, that's the owners job... Is it that hard to understand?